This is Māyāvāda philosophy. They are studying māyā; they put God also within māyā. This is Māyāvāda philosophy. But God is not māyā. God is never covered by māyā. Kṛṣṇa says that mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te: (BG 7.14) "Anyone who surrenders unto Me, he becomes free from the clutches of māyā." How Kṛṣṇa can be within māyā? That is not very good philosophy. Simply by surrendering unto Kṛṣṇa, you become free from māyā. How the person, the Supreme Person, Kṛṣṇa, can be within māyā? Therefore Kṛṣṇa said, avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam, paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ (BG 9.11). They do not know how much potential the Lord is, how much powerful He is. They are comparing the power of the Supreme Lord with his own power. A frog philosophy. The Dr. Frog. Frog is considering, "Atlantic Ocean may be a little bigger than the well." Because he is living always.
Potential (Lectures)
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
That's all. Kṛṣṇa is already there by His name. Nāma-rūpe kali-kāle kṛṣṇa-avatāra. Kṛṣṇa has descended by His name. Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu preached the chanting, that you can become... But the profit is that if you are in offense, even if you do not have the power of appreciation, because Kṛṣṇa is all-potential, simply by chanting in any condition of life you become purified. But the more you have got the power of appreciation the more you get benefit. But immediate benefit is in whatever condition you may be if you simply chant Hare Kṛṣṇa then the benefit begins immediately without any moment. You have got any question? Yes?
These descriptions are there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam of Kṛṣṇa's palace, Kṛṣṇa's sixteen thousand wives, Kṛṣṇa's expansion into sixteen thousand forms. This is Bhagavān. Bhagavān means unlimitedly potential. That is Bhagavān.
So here in this chapter, we are trying to understand what is Bhagavān. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means to try to understand what is Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is our endeavor. It is very difficult to understand Bhagavān, but there is process, you can understand God, or Bhagavān. That process is being described by the Supreme Lord Himself, Bhagavān. Bhagavān uvāca. What is that process?
"Everything is resting on Me, but don't think that I am finished because you cannot see there. I am here." Na cāhaṁ teṣu avasthitaḥ. It is not necessarily that we have to see everywhere. Ataḥ sa bhakti udi, uditam adbhūtam aiśvaryam ahaḥ.(?) Now, this transcendental nature of God, all-potential nature of God, to a devotee it will give pleasure, and to a nondevotee it will be seeming like, oh, so many bluff is being spoken by Kṛṣṇa. As soon as I become a nondevotee, I'll think all these statement as bluff given by Kṛṣṇa. And as soon as I am a devotee, oh, I'll think, "Oh, my Lord is so powerful." He becomes full with love and adoration.
This is called bhakti. Yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ (SB 5.18.12). If one becomes a devotee of the Lord, akiñcana-bhakti, then sarvair guṇaiḥ, all good qualities will come out automatically. Because every living entity is part and parcel of God. God is all-good. Therefore every living entity, potentially, constitutionally, he is also good. As God is good, we are also good. But due to our material association, we have become bad. So if we revive our old position, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then automatically we shall become all-good. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
As there are different things of different value, similarly, in each name there are potencies of the Lord. But there is degrees of potency. Just like rāma-līlā and kṛṣṇa-līlā, pastimes. Both of them are the same thing, God. But in the rāma-līlā you find less potential exhibition of the Lord, but in kṛṣṇa-līlā you find full potential manifestation of Lord. So degrees of potency... Although it does not mean the Rāma is less potent. No. Rāma is also the same potency. But under circumstances He exhibits a partial potency, not full potency. But kṛṣṇa-līlā, you will find full potency.
Acyutānanda: If we, when we show the books to new life..., potential life members, they go to that part. They look...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is attracted to that. So therefore it is said: śrotra-ramo 'bhirāmāt. It is pleasing to everyone. But unless one becomes a devotee—it may be pleasing—he cannot derive the effect. He cannot derive the effect. As we practically see, generally, the Bhāgavata reciters, they read these chapters and they hear also, but they do not improve. They do not improve; simply sentiment. They do not understand Kṛṣṇa.
As Kṛṣṇa is perfect, similarly, this name is also perfect. Pūrṇaḥ śuddhaḥ. As Kṛṣṇa is pure, without any material contamination, apāpa-viddham, no, nothing sin, sinful can affect him... You have read it in the Īśopaniṣad. Just like sunshine. Infection cannot infect sunshine. Some disease can infect you, me, because we are less potential. But it cannot infect the sun. Rather, the sunshine will sterilize the infection. So anything infectious, anything sinful, cannot infect Kṛṣṇa. Rather sinful activities in touch with Kṛṣṇa will become purified. This is the process.
We see the sunshine, the potency of the sun. The sunshine is spread all over, and everything is existing on the sunshine. Even the sunshine has got the so much potency. That we can experience. And how much potential is Kṛṣṇa, who is the creator of the sun also. Yac cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇāṁ rājā samasta-sura-mūrtir aśeṣa-tejāḥ. So we have to study like that everything. Everything is Kṛṣṇa's expansion. Just like the fire. Fire is situated in one place, but here... Just like here there is a fireplace. But if there is fire, the heat will be experienced up, up, upstair, and here and that other side. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa, although He's person, He's situated... Goloka eva nivasati. He's enjoying there in Goloka Vṛndāvana. By His energy, He is expanded. This is simple truth. Anyone, any man with common sense, he can experience.
Don't think that Kṛṣṇa is living in Goloka Vṛndāvana and the name is different. Just like in material world we have got this conception. The name is different from the fact. But in the Absolute world there is no such difference. That is called absolute. Name is as potential as Kṛṣṇa is potential.
So you have got this tongue. You can chant Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Immediately you become directly in touch with Kṛṣṇa. Immediately. Because the name Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa-person is not different. Identical. So even if you think that Kṛṣṇa is far, far away... Kṛṣṇa is not far, far away. Kṛṣṇa is not far, far away. Kṛṣṇa is within you. He's not far away. He's far away, at the same time nearest.
Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam: (BG 9.11) "Mūḍhas, the rascals, they think, because I appear as a human being, they think as ordinary human being." Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ: "They do not know the great potentiality of Myself." Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ. Still, they will go on explaining Bhagavad-gītā, writing Bhāgavata, comments on. These rascals, mūḍhas, one who does not know that Kṛṣṇa has no distinction, as we have got distinction body and soul, Kṛṣṇa has no such distinction. Kṛṣṇa has no distinction between this Kṛṣṇa's form of stone and Kṛṣṇa Himself. Because the stone is also Kṛṣṇa's energy.
Yaḥ kāraṇārṇava-jale bhajati sma yoga-nidrām ananta-jagad-aṇḍa-saroma-kūpaḥ (Bs. 5.47). Yaḥ kāraṇārṇava-jale bhajati sma yoga-nidrām anantam. That is Mahā-Viṣṇu. Yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya jīvanti loma-vilajā jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ (Bs. 5.48). So from His breathing nostril, ananta, unlimited number of potential universes, are coming, and—exhaling, inhaling—and unlimited going within. This is Mahā-Viṣṇu. This Mahā-Viṣṇu is also plenary portion of Kṛṣṇa. Yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya jīvanti loma-vilajā jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ (Bs. 5.48). So many things are described in the Brahma-saṁhitā. But still, He is acyuta, anādi, He has no cause. He is causeless.
That subtle forms exist in the ether has been proven by modern science by transmission of television, by which forms or photographs of one place are transmitted to another place by the action of the ethereal element. That is very nicely explained here. This verse is the potential basis of great scientific research work, for it explains how subtle forms are generated from the ethereal element, what their characteristics and actions are, and how the tangible elements, namely air, fire, water and earth, are manifested from the subtle form.
You see Kṛṣṇa. When Kṛṣṇa is sitting, you will find effulgence. That effulgence, it is so full of potencies. Same way, as the sunlight, sunshine, is so full of potencies—they are producing so many planets, varieties—similarly, you can understand how much Kṛṣṇa's effulgence, that shining from His body, is potential. So that is stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā. Coming out universes. And within the universes there are planets, and within the planet there are so many varieties, and within the varieties there are so many differentiation.
It requires a different brain. That brain is created by devotional service, these finer tissues. Just like those who are dull materialists, their brain is congested with so much rubbish thing, they cannot understand that it is through the bodily effulgence of the Lord the potential manifestation is this cosmic manifestation. They will think that like Dr. Frog, "If it is created by God, where He got so much ingredient, so much instrument, that He created?" Yes. But God's creation is not like that.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "This cosmic manifestation, the material world, is also Your body. By Your potential energy known as kāla-śakti, this total lump of matter is agitated, and thus three modes of material nature are manifested. In this way You become awakened from the bed of Ananta-Śeṣa, and from Your navel a small transcendental seed is generated, from which the gigantic universe becomes manifest. Exactly like the small seed of banyan tree, the lotus flower of the cosmic manifestation is grown up."
Prabhupāda: These verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, they are Vedic mantras. They're not ordinary wording, set of wording. It is not. Veda-mantra, saṁhitā.
Nectar of Devotion Lectures
Satām, devotees. That same thing Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura says. Tādera caraṇa, the desire should be, how to serve the Gosvāmīs, how to serve Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, how to serve Kṛṣṇa. That should be the desire, that this desire can be fulfilled when we are living with the devotees. Therefore we have got this society, Kṛṣṇa consciousness society. Anyone who will live in this society, naturally he will develop Kṛṣṇa consciousness, very quickly, very easily. Satāṁ prasaṅgān mama vīrya-saṁvido bhavanti hṛt-karṇa-rasāyanāḥ kathāḥ (SB 3.25.25). Kṛṣṇa-kathāḥ is very potential.
If you simply hear about Kṛṣṇa. The process... To... Kṛṣṇa-tattva-vettā means to hear about Kṛṣṇa. That's all. Try to hear about Kṛṣṇa. Satāṁ prasaṅgād mama vīrya-saṁvidaḥ. That is very, what is called, potential. Simply if you hear from the right source of Kṛṣṇa—not from the professional, or from jñānīs, karmīs, or politicians. No. Pure devotee. Satāṁ prasaṅgād: in pure devotional service, in pure devotional mood. Then the potency will act and you will, we shall become more devotees. Khanera gītā diya mora me pasile mora me pasile (?). It will act. And as soon as it will act, you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, then your life becomes successful, above all sinful or pious activities. What is that?
Although He is Kṛṣṇa Himself—He could manufacture so many things—but He did not do so. That is ācārya. Ācārya will not manufacture any new type of religion, a new type of phrase of Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. That is not potent. The... Just like Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. This is in the śāstra. So that is potential. Now if we add and subtract something from these sixteen words, that is my manufacture. That will have not the potency. They do not understand it.
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures
Nature is very strong. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). Very, very strong. So you all, boys and girls, those who have come from America, I am very much thankful to you. But don't be less serious. Be very serious. And another thing I'll request especially to the Americans, that America has got good potentiality to save the world, so if you preach very nicely in your country... And not all of them will be interested, but if a section of men in your country, you can turn them to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, it will be great benefit to the whole world. But the aim is the same, punar-janma-jayāya: to gain victory over this process of birth, death and old age.
So Kṛṣṇa has innumerable expansions. So far potency of the Lord is concerned, in those expansions there is no difference of potency, but the different names are due to difference of manifestation. Sometimes the Lord is manifested with two hands, sometimes with four hands. And (in) the four hands there are different symbolic representation. So due to these different kinds of manifestation there are different names, but so far God's six potential opulences are concerned, they are always present in every form and manifestation. There is no difference.
Now, out of these three different potencies, then Kṛṣṇa expands Himself also to conduct or to control or to act on these three potential power. The icchā-śakti, willing potency, that is being controlled by His expansion which is known as Vāsudeva. Icchā-jñāna vinā nā haya sṛjana. Without desire and without knowledge, nothing can be created, nothing. Suppose we are manufacturing so many things. Now, the manufacturer is first of all thinking, willing, that "This sort of thing, if we manufacture, it will be very nicely sold in the market." That is icchā-śakti.
And the potential activity, that is being done by the expansion of Saṅkarṣaṇa, either in this material world or in the spiritual world. So parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyat (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport)e. In this way the Lord is working in so many ways, and because we have no knowledge, we think that "There is no brain behind it. There is no knowledge behind it. Everything is coming out automatically, and we are the master of everything." That is called illusion. So by Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you will be free from this illusion, and you will know how God is working by His different potential power.
Now, such a vast, gigantic Mahā-Viṣṇu, of whose breathing producing these universes and whose inhaling, annihilating all the universes—such vast Mahā-Viṣṇu is only part and part of the expansion of Kṛṣṇa, or Govinda. So Brahmā says, govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi **. So just we have to imagine how much potential is the Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Festival Lectures
And these thousands of men are following simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. So you can understand what is the potency of this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. We do not pay anything, you ladies and gentlemen, to follow us. But we simply chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. So it is very potential. Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, a great ācārya of Vaiṣṇava sampradāya, he has sung, golokera prema-dhana, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana. This Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, or chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, it is not anything material. Therefore you will never feel tired chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. You see practically. You go on chanting twenty-four hours; you will never feel tired. Therefore it is said, golokera prema-dhana. This chanting vibration is coming from the spiritual world. Just like you receive material sound vibration in the radios or television from distant place, there is another machine which can receive the vibration in the spiritual world. So that vibration is Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra.
We are born into this world because we desire to enjoy something, so Kṛṣṇa provides us with a body that is suitable for that enjoyment, and He provides us also the objects of the enjoyment that we desire. However, also to remind us of our highest possible potential, that of the spiritual, unconditioned existence, we have along with these material enjoyments various kinds of suffering. These material enjoyments, although they are temporarily real, come to an end, and then there is feeling of bereavement and regret.
That Paramātmā feature is one expansion of Kṛṣṇa. It is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, athavā bahunaitena kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna ekāṁṣena viṣṭabhyāham. Ekāṁṣena. When Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna was trying to understand about different potential existence of Kṛṣṇa, so He explained in the Twelfth Chapter, "I am this. Amongst them, I am this. Amongst them..." Like that. And He concluded that "How far I shall go on? Better try to understand that only one plenary portion of Me, by entering this universe, the whole cosmic manifestation is existing."
General Lectures
"God" means He is not like us. He can expand Himself. Even the yogis, some of the yogis, not these ordinary third-class yogis, but those who have attained yogic perfection, they can expand the body in at least up to eight. The yogis can do that. There are instances. So if an ordinary yogi can do that, just imagine how much potential there is of the Supreme Lord. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe arjuna tiṣṭhati: (BG 18.61) "My dear Arjuna, the Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart, in every one living being's heart." You just imagine how many living entities are there. They cannot be counted. Jīva-bhago sa vijñeyaḥ sa anantaya kalpate. But there are many million, trillions. Even million, trillions is insufficient. There is no counting.
On account of their bodily glowing, the whole sun planet is glowing. On account of the sun planet glowing, the sunshine, which is reaching us from 93,000,000's of miles—we feel the heat and the light. This is an ordinary material thing. So just imagine what is the potential of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
So we cannot imagine what is the potential power, energy of the Supreme Person, just like we cannot estimate what is the temperature of the sun globe, sun-god. It is in our front. We have got aeroplanes. We can go there. But before going there we will be finished, the temperature is so high. Everyone knows it.
Kṛṣṇa is enjoying in the company of Rādhārāṇī. This is blissfulness. And although we have got our wife, there are so many difficulties to maintain. That's it. He has got His body, but His body is different from our this body. Although apparently He has got two hands, two legs, but they are unlimitedly potential, full of bliss. That's a... God can expand. As it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe arjuna tiṣṭhati: (BG 18.61) "The Lord is situated in everyone's heart." But we cannot do that. I cannot even know what you are feeling, pains and pleasure. But God He can know. Otherwise why we offer prayer to God? He knows. In this way you have to study what is God. Although apparently He has got two hands, two legs, but that hands and legs are not like ours.
This is not India's good fortune. We should not imitate. That is not very good civilization. That is, this has been described as asuric civilization in the Bhagavad-gītā. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇu: they do not know. Anyway, although they do not know, they are accepting now. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is so potential that they are accepting, that is upakāra. Caitanya Mahāprabhu wanted this, para upakāra. They are in darkness, tamasi. Bring them in the light: tamasi mā jyotir gamaḥ.
Philosophy Discussions
Devānanda: They postulated... The French philosophers at one point postulated that within the matter itself there is a potential of consciousness. They called it elan vital, living potential within matter, and when you put the matter together in certain positions, then that living potential is able to come out, and when the material nature changes again, it is no longer manifested.
Prabhupāda: That is another nonsense, because when the body becomes from the lump of matter, why that living potentiality, consciousness, does not come again?
Śyāmasundara: Yes. His main philosophy is that existence and essence are both there; that existence is not possible without essence. He defines existence to be..., er, essence to be potential and existence to be the actual. So that a thing, and everything that we can perceive, has both existence and, in other words, potentiality and actuality. For instance, this cup has the potentiality to be something else, to be a piece of metal, but in its actual form it is like this. But it has potentiality to become something else. So he says these two things—the essence and the existence-exist simultaneously.
Prabhupāda: So we agree to this point. Just like soul, at the present moment you have got a certain type of body, human body, but the soul has potentiality to have a spiritual body or a dog's body. Both potentialities are there. So the essential is the soul, and the reality... It is not reality; temporary form in the material body. But the potentiality as the soul has its own spiritual body. When it is uncontaminated by the material contamination, he remains only reality without any so-called actuality or temporary form.
Śyāmasundara: He says that God, He is pure actuality. There is no potentiality.
Prabhupāda: Absolute.
Śyāmasundara: He is Absolute. He is pure existence and essence together, but that the..., everything else that exists besides God has these two characteristics of potentiality and actuality.
Prabhupāda: That potentiality, actuality, it is material relativity. In the spiritual world there is same—potentiality, reality—they're one. Just like Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa, the rascal scholars, they think that Kṛṣṇa's body and Kṛṣṇa's soul is different, as it is, what is called, expressed by Dr. Radhakrishnan. But that is not the fact. There is no such difference. Kṛṣṇa also says, avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā (BG 9.11). Because He comes in a human form, rascals think of Him as ordinary human being. But He is not that.
Prabhupāda: There is no such difference. Kṛṣṇa also says, avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā (BG 9.11). Because He comes in a human form, rascals think of Him as ordinary human being. But He is not that. He is absolute. He has nothing to do with the body and soul as we have got. He is body and soul together-potentiality and the actuality. Similarly, anyone who gets a spiritual body, he also gets the same position. There will be no difference between actuality and potentiality.
Śyāmasundara: He says that God, or the divine intellect, perceives His own essence.
Prabhupāda: No. (break)
Śyāmasundara: Well, these two types of energy he would call..., material energy he would call potential energy, and the spiritual energy, he would say is actual energy.
Prabhupāda: Well, actual, the energy is one, but it is working differently. Just like electricity is one, but it is working differently as cooler and heater, although cooling and heating are two opposites. Cooling is just opposite of heating, and heating is just opposite of cooling, but electric energy is working in both the places.
Śyāmasundara: Electric energy is also measured in terms of its potency, its potential.
Śyāmasundara: He says that because God is pure actuality, the opposite of godly nature is pure potential without much existence.
Prabhupāda: No. The existence is there. The essential, essence also is there, but it is a question of awareness and not awareness. One who knows, he is brāhmaṇa; one who does not know, he is kṛpaṇa. Just like human beings, one who knows what is Brahman, he is called brāhmaṇa, and one who does not know what is Brahman, he is called a kṛpaṇa. Kṛpaṇa. Kṛpaṇa means miser. He got the opportunity to understand Brahman but he did not care for it, just like a man has got money but he could not utilize it. Similarly, the opposite word of brāhmaṇa is kṛpaṇa. Those who are trying to understand the essence, they are brāhmaṇa, brāhmaṇa. Veda pathād bhaved vipra brahma jānātīti brāhmaṇaḥ: by studying Vedas, trying to understand the essence.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. Whereas the lower types of entities who are purely potential but have very small existences, like they're animal, plant life, he sees that hierarchy, and he says that the highest summit of man is..., the summit of wisdom, when he becomes capable of loving God lovingly.
Prabhupāda: That's right.
Śyāmasundara: Then he becomes purely...
Śyāmasundara: ...then our potential nature is no more existing; everything is purely actual.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: We have actualized our potential.
Prabhupāda: Absolute platform. Yes. That is absolute platform.
Śyāmasundara: Up to that stage, everything has got some potential...
Prabhupāda: Difference, so potential is actual.
Prabhupāda: Difference, so potential is actual.
Śyāmasundara: But they are acting on a smaller level. And when they reach that stage of loving God, then there's no more potential, purely actual.
Prabhupāda: That's right. That is higher conception. Saṁsiddhiṁ labhate parām. That is higher conception.
Śyāmasundara: He says... Now here is maybe one degree of difference. He says that ethical life, or knowledge of the Absolute, comes to our conscience or our reason, and the ethical life is to act in accordance or obedience to our conscience or our reason.
Śyāmasundara: He says that God knows reality as it exists and it has the potentiality to become. In other words, He knows everything.
Prabhupāda: He knows. Vedāhaṁ samatītāni (BG 7.26). Kṛṣṇa says, "I know everything, past, present and future." You have nothing like that, past, present and future. The past, present and future is concealed due to our, these temporary material bodies.
Śyāmasundara: He says that the human being is nature's most perfect creation.
Prabhupāda: That's it. We also accept that. So after many, many births, 8,400,000 species of life, one gets this human form of life, and that also, civilized life, that also, in India, following the Vedic principles, that is the highest birth.
Śyāmasundara: This potential and actual, he also says that potential is matter and actual is form, so that God, being purely actual, is also pure form.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Without God being form, how the forms are coming? Janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). In the original (indistinct) (break)
Śyāmasundara: Potentiality is matter, and actuality is form. Potentiality is undifferentiated matter, whereas actuality is form. So God, being actuality, is also pure form.
Prabhupāda: That also we say: sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1). Sat cit ānanda vigraha, form. Vigraha means form. So what else?
Madhudviṣa: So your mother..., the mother's saying "This is father" has no meaning, has no value. It contains no potential as father. The father is the person who is the close companion of the mother, and...
Prabhupāda: The thing is, when the mother says who is your father, then next question will be from the child, "What is father?"
Śyāmasundara: Yes. What is father...?
Prabhupāda: What is father, that enquiry. Then (s)he'll say that without father you cannot get birth. That is progress of knowledge.
Prabhupāda: That is stored impression.
Revatīnandana: (indistinct) potentially manifest...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Revatīnandana: They are potentially manifest, but they don't have to. But they...
Prabhupāda: It is just like photograph. If you take so many snap, but not all of them immediately moves.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, somebody has to do it. Tad vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). He must approach a guru to discover his...
Śyāmasundara: Yes. So he says here, "Potentialities which are hitherto unexploited and which lie covered in him can be brought out by the knowing self and utilized."
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our process. Caitanya Mahāprabhu is acting as guru, and He's asking everyone, jīv jāgo jīv jāgo. Therefore the conclusion should be that in order to come to the real position of our life, we must approach a guru, a person who knows what is what.
Hayagrīva: Now the, this would be the view, the second view, that is reincarnation. "This concept of rebirth necessarily implies the continuity of personality. Here the human personality is regarded as continuous and accessible to memory, so that when one is incarnated or born one is able, at least potentially, to remember that one has lived through previous existences, and that these existences were one's own, namely that he had the same ego form as the present life. As a rule, reincarnation means rebirth in a human body."
Prabhupāda: Not human body. Just, we have got historical references in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. A king, Bhārata Mahārāja, he was king, and in next life he became a deer, and the next life he became a brāhmaṇa. So the soul is continuing, changing. The example is given, just like a man changes his dress.
Hayagrīva: Here's another point. Aristotle says that it is not material objects that are trying to realize God, like as Plato says, but God realizing Himself through material objects. God does this in a variegated way and in an infinite way. So God realizes the potentiality of a rose or of a man by creating a rose, a flower, a man that is perceivable by the material senses. So the world is more real to Aristotle than it is to Plato.
Prabhupāda: If God has created the material world and material variety, so means He is in full awareness how to do things nicely. That is perfectness of God. He knows everything how to do it perfectly, naturally. Just like even a child, we get daily experience, when we offer some cake in the Deity room, the child immediately takes it and puts in the mouth.
Hayagrīva: Aquinas believed that God is the only single essence that consists of pure form. He felt that matter is only a potential and, in order to be real, must assume a certain shape or form. "Being in the universe have to acquire an individual form in order to actualize themselves. When matter unites with form, the form gives an object its individuality and personality." A form gives an object its individuality and personality.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The mat..., matter has no form. The spirit soul has got form. Though the matter is covering the actual form of the spirit soul, the matter appears to have form.
Hayagrīva: "...these perfections are in some fashion potentially in me...,"
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: "...although they do not show themselves."
Prabhupāda: But they are finite. They are finite, very small particle. That I have already explained many times, that the creative force is in me. I can create also. Now in the modern scientific knowledge, so I have created a big plane floating in the air, but I cannot create another planet with so many mountains and vast water, oceans, and trees. That I cannot do.
| Page Title: | Potential (Lectures) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 29 of Nov, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=50, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 50 |